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Waist Measurement Idiocy

A healthy diet consists of vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, and only small quantities of easily-digested carbohydrates.

Waist measurement confusion reigns! First they tell us to watch our Body Mass Index, then, after literally years of stupid propaganda they admit that 1) it is too complex for most people to follow and most importantly 2) it is actually wrong for many body types (athletes notoriously being measured as ‘clinically obese’ by the system). Some talk of a good waist-to-hip ratio as being a good system, but while better, again it isn’t all that simple to calculate.

Now on the BBC today doctors have been promoting an alternative ‘one size fits all system’, probably even more stupid, after a study has shown that waist size correlates with diabetes risk (of course it does). Now women are supposed to keep their waist sizes below 31 inches (80cm). Men? 37 inches (94cm). As usual, the system is based on averages so won’t work correctly for tall or short people, or many athletes.

Why not do what more thoughtful researchers actually suggest instead?

The proper method is in fact very simple, and works for men and women, tall, short and in between.

Your waist should be less than half your height.

That’s it.

What’s wrong with that?

You could also eat according to the healthy eating pyramid, of course – that too is not the one normally advised, but the one shown in the image above, instead. The usual one has dangerously high levels of unhealthy carbohydrates like bread, pasta, rice and potatoes in it. Stone Age humans didn’t eat much of that sort of thing, and neither should we, unless we want to be diabetic.